40 Casualties in Mahdi Army clash with Sunni Arab guerrillas
AP reports that major clashes were fought Saturday at Mahmudiyah south of Baghdad between Mahdi Army militiamen (puritanical Shiites) and local Sunni Arab guerrillas killed or wounded about 50 persons late on Saturday. AP writes, ' Some 40 persons reportedly were killed or injured — no breakdown was immediately available — in the clash between forces of the Shia Mehdi Army militia and Sunni militants near Mahmoudiya, 30 km south of the capital, police reported. '
Six other Iraqis were killed in separate incidents, and the deaths of two US marines were announced. Police found 10 more corpses in Iraq on Saturday. These are typically young men targetted for reprisal killings because of their religious sect.
The poorly named Islamic Army of Iraq, a neo-Baathist guerrilla group, announced Saturday that it is watching journalists in that country and will act against those it [arbitrarily] deems spies.
Knight Ridder reports that even Iraqi politicians are admitting that their inability so far to form a government after the December 15 elections is making the situation in the country worse and giving an opening to the guerrillas.
Al-Sharq al-Awsat reports [Ar.] that Member of Parliament and Sadrist leader Shaikh Nasir al-Saaedi [al-Sa`idi] said Saturday that two knotty issues confront the attempt to form a government in Iraq. The first is the position of the blocs in parliament on the constitution, and respect for the electoral achievement of the political blocs that make up parliament. He said that the attempt to curb the prerogatives of those parties that actually won the election constitutes a voiding of the election outcomes and an insult to the Iraqi people who risked all to come out and vote. (Fears are being raised that the proposed "national security council" will form an unconstitutional brake on the powers of the elected government.)
He said that he and the other Sadrists are committed to Dawa Party leader Ibrahim Jaafar as the United Iraqi Alliance candidate for prime minister. He said that setting aside Jaafari risked breaking up the UIA and betraying the trust of the Iraqi people.
The Kurdistan Alliance has led a charge, supported by the Sunni Arab parties and by the Kurds to unseat Jaafari.
Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Saturday that US-Iran talks on Iraq will be conditional and limited. He told IRNA, "We essentially do not trust the Americans but we will conditionally negotiate with them about Iraq while taking into account the interests of Iraqis and the world of Islam."
I hear behind the scenes from people on the ground in Iraq. Little mainstream reporting gives a sense of the grittiness, grimness, death and destruction that they discern behind the traffic jams and the frantic shopping/ hoarding of everyday life. Kudos to Jeffrey Gettleman for telling it like it is. One remembers what a controversy it caused when Farnaz Fassihi of the Wall Street Journal let it be known in October of 2004 via an email how bad things were in Baghdad, how shocking her first-hand account seemed to many Americans who were not being given the full story by their government or their press (sometimes the latter is stenographer for the former). Gettleman's thoughtful and hard-hitting piece is sort of like Fassihi 2, except that the NYT published it and the Wall Street Journal never published Fassihi's backgrounder.
Jeffrey Gettleman also explains the practical difference between Sunnis and Shiites in Iraq.
posted by Juan Cole @ 3/25/2006 11:30:00 PM
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The Kurdistan Alliance has led a charge, supported by the Sunni Arab parties and by the Kurds to unseat Jaafari.
I think it is more accurate to say that the United States is coordinating a charge, with the support of Kurds and Sunni Arab parties to unseat Jaafari.
There was a constitution, the United States blessed it, elections were held under that constitution that produced an outcome the United States does not like and now the United States is attempting to nullify the constitution.
If Khalizad's wishes are more important in determining political outcomes in Iraq than the written constitution, then Khalizad is a colonial governor and the constitution is a farce.
I am skeptical that the United States' role in this is of good-hearted bumblers.
Always short on facts, the cheaply Neoconish New York Sun recently published yet another article purporting to “prove” the existence of secret links between the Iraqi Baath party and Al Qaeda- see link below:
Saddam, Al Qaeda Did Collaborate, Documents Show
However, reading the article in question only “reveals” that:
“The document has no official stamps or markers”
“The question of future cooperation [between Saddam and Bin Laden] is left an open question”
“New documents […] did not prove Saddam Hussein played a role in any way in plotting the attacks of September 11, 2001”
Funny how after their Iraq debacle, the Neocons haven’t stopped peddling the tall tale of Saddam’s alleged “connections” with OBL: the Leninist thugs of Washington are decidedly obsessed with Saddam and the Baath party…even after they’ve been rendered inoffensive- assuming they ever posed a threat to America any other country.
Bush, Cheney & Co. have always lied about the nature of the Iraqi regime, repeatedly accusing Saddam Hussein of being an Islamic fundamentalist in cahoots with Osama Bin Laden and the Taleban: unfortunately, after having been bombarded with fabricated infomercials produced by Israeli “Middle-East experts”, the American public eventually came to believe exactly what the Neocon wanted: that Saddam was kind of a later days bloodthirsty Saracen, on the verge of conquering the Infidel pastures of Wyoming and Oklahoma!
Yet, as we now know, the truth is otherwise: there never were any “links” between the Baath party and Al Qaeda, no spooky “secret meetings” in Vienna or Prague or “somewhere in Eastern Europe” between “Saddam’s diplomatic envoy and Bin Laden’s righthand man” as Vice-President Dick Cheney had alleged on numerous occasions
In Fact, Saddam Hussein was a staunchly secular Arab nationalist, a disciple of professor Mitchell Aflaq, the French-educated Orthodox Christian philosopher. And, if anything, Christian minorities and women were generally overrepresented in Saddam’s government: Vice-President Tareq Hanna Aziz was actually Catholic and so were Saddam’s Chief of Staff and many of the senior civil servants working at the presidential palace.
And check out this article for a fascinating firsthand description of Saddam’s Tickrit “spider hole” hideout:
“Pinned to the outside wall of the hut was a cardboard box depicting biblical scenes such as the Last Supper and the Madonna and child with the English inscription "God bless our home." Inside the bedroom was a 2003 calendar in Arabic with a colorful depiction of Noah's Ark. Soldiers were surprised at the Christian decorations”
Yes these US soldiers were “surprised” after having been brainwashed about Saddam’s penchant for Islamic fundamentalism…which turned out to be just another lie churned out by Washington’s Neo-Conmintern propaganda factory.
Like him or not, Saddam Hussein was a truly modernist, Westernized Arab head of state who protected women’s rights and enforced affirmative action programs in favor of Iraq’s tiny Christian minority. “Old Europe’s” foreign policy establishment viewed the Iraqi Baath party essentially as a strong bulwark against both Persian-Khomeinist fundamentalism and Wahhabi-Afghan terrorism.
The Israelis and Washington’s Neocons thought otherwise: now we have to deal with the strictures of Sharia Law, the rise of Hamas and the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) which they have deliberately brought to power…
Transformation diplomacy in action.
WaPo. Jonathan Finer, John Ward Anderson. U.S., Iraqi Forces Target Sadr Followers in Iraq
U.S. and Iraqi special forces killed at least 16 followers of the Shiite Muslim cleric Moqtada al-Sadr Sunday in a twilight assault on what the U.S. military said was a "terrorist cell" responsible for attacks on soldiers and civilians.
Aides to Sadr, who is backed by one of the country's largest and most feared militias, said those killed were innocents praying in the al-Moustafa mosque in the Shaab neighborhood...
The killings further inflamed an already volatile political situation as Iraqi leaders struggle to form a new government amid mounting sectarian violence.
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